Introducing: Kata Curator

12 June 2013 · by CoderDojo

After much consideration Bill and James have asked Mr Rob Stocker if he would take on the mantle of a Kata Curator. Rob has graciously accepted this role, and it seemed pertinent to explain a little more on the background and future plans connected with this decision. Kata for those who don't know is the long suffering wiki system setup to share best practice and learning resources for mentors in different CoderDojos. You can visit the website here… http://kata.coderdojo.com/wiki/Main_Page It became very apparent at the recent #dojocon @slanecastle that many people in the community where unaware of this system, and for those who where able they could not access the edit feature, or simply got frustrated with the navigation. All in all, Kata was not performing the job set out for it. Introducing Rob; who tirelessly worked on the system for several months to tease out some of the best bits and begin formulating it in such a way that it was digestible to those Mentors without the time to sit and mess around. Now CoderDojo doesn't generally go for the whole title thing, however in this instance it seemed necessary to denominate a 'Curator' so that others in the community knew to whom to look for leadership and administrative access as we continue to compile all of the great stuff that individual mentors are creating in CoderDojos around the world. Rob naturally distinguished himself both by his efforts and voice in the community. It is important to note that CoderDojo is an opensource system, no one person has absolute control over individual CoderDojos. The online system however does require some force of direction in order to best serve the community, and appointing the first Curator of Kata is a step in that process. There are no guarantees that you the community will engage with this resource, however I Lindsay MacVean hold my hand up with several other prominent community members in seconding this decision to support Rob Stocker as the first of several Kata Curators. I wish him luck and look forward to seeing more of his thoughts on how he sees the content compilation developing for the CoderDojo community. As part of this program Rob has set up a Google Group where CoderDojo mentors can join to discuss online content sharing. Go to the following link to sign up… https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/kata-coderdojo Want to join Rob on his quest to making CoderDojo more collaborative. You too can be a curator of Kata, perhaps you have some great resources already compiled on a local CoderDojo site, or perhaps you have been discussing a grand vision for online resources over the past few months; feel free to email us at [email protected] with your ideas and we can put you in touch with Rob or someone else in the community who is already working on this stuff. As always…Be cool.